PHILADELPHIA – up 10-8 at halftime and 11-9 early in the third quarter, the No. 15 University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team was overwhelmed by a potent Cornell attack after that and fell to the Big Red, 20-13, on Saturday at Penn Park.
 
Down, 11-9, Cornell scored five goals in the final eight minutes of the third quarter to take a 14-11 lead into the final period. Penn got one of those goals back 1:51 into the fourth, and made it a 16-13 game with 5:20 left. However, the Quakers were chasing the game at that point and Cornell took advantage of some open goals to pop home the game's final four goals and secure the victory.
 
Simon Mathias had five points for the Quakers, scoring four goals and dishing off an assist. Tyler Dunn scored three times and had an assist, while Kevin McGeary and Adam Goldner both scored twice. At the other end, Reed Junkin had 10 saves in the Penn goal as Cornell outshot Penn on the day, 46-24. The Big Red also held the advantage on the face-off X, 21-15.
 
The teams scored four goals before the game was four minutes old, a harbinger of this day. Cornell scored three of them, but when things settled down Penn was able to get back to 4-4 by the end of the period. The Big Red again went up by two goals in the second quarter, but Matthias scored a pair of goals just 25 seconds apart and that set the Quakers off on a 4-0 run that put them in front, 9-7. Cornell got one of the goals back with a minute to play before halftime, but Dunn scored with just five seconds left on the clock and Penn took a 10-8 lead to the break.
 
Mathias answered a Cornell goal to start the third-quarter scoring, but after that it was all Cornell the remainder of the period. That trend continued into the fourth.
 
Up Next
Penn is at Yale next Saturday, facing off with the eighth-ranked Bulldogs at 1 p.m.